Tyburn to Birmingham. 24 Locks & 1 roundabout.

Waking early this morning to the sound of pouring rain on the roof it was a case of shrugging the shoulders, finding the coats and getting on the move.

An hour later found us under the M6 motorway bridge, this place is bleak, impressive but bleak, bleaker than something very bleak in a bleak place.

This is where the turn is made to head for the city centre, the first set of 11 locks are the Aston flight leading you ever upwards to the famous Farmers Bridge flight of 13.

As a quick observation, all the road bridges along here have these doors cut into them or opening grilles painted red. Absolutely no idea what these are for and cannot even hazard a guess.






Farmers bridge really takes you around the houses and I mean that literally. The flight is like this nearly all the way up, as Adam commented every lock in a different location.








The BT tower was a guiding beacon for most of the way, the last four or five locks saw us eventually get past it.

Then, out of the blue was the sign we had been looking for, we have made it!

D was just that little bit overworked on these flights but as I had made good use of the emergency large whip today as opposed to the normal small one everything worked out just fine.

Once around the roundabout with attendant Goose population and we were at Gas Street Basin.

Hanging baskets everywhere along with throngs of people and trip boats scuttling all around was not quite the picture I had in mind, this is going to be a good stop over.

Best bib and tucker on and we were off out to the city centre, which is exactly the time the rain decided to come down again, only this time it stayed through the evening.

The speed with which a scene can change due to rain is quite staggering, everyone seemed to melt away leaving the trip boats amongst other businesses empty.

Hope its better tomorrow........................................